Abyssal Wanderer.

After the clock struck a certain point, the entire computer room began to be completely disassembled.

The servers that were flashing indicator lights first began to vibrate violently, and then they were broken down into smaller units during the vibrations—not into the various parts that make up the servers, but into blocks of exactly the same size, like building blocks.

Each small cube was constantly vibrating, with countless fine electric currents flowing between them.

Then, those small cubes continued to be broken down into even smaller cubes—they first became as fine as sand, then as fine as dust, and finally so fine that they could not be observed with the naked eye.

Jiang Zhou suspected that their decomposition would continue beyond the limits of human observation.

"What's going on here?"

Seeing this sudden turn of events, Jiang Zhou couldn't help but ask with some unease.

"Simply put, we won."

Janus, however, declared victory directly.

"He won? Then Jim..."

"The choice affirms the value of the parasite's existence."

Janus replied in this way.

As he said this, a hazy, dark mist gathered around him.

Without explaining the source of the black mist, he continued:
"Therefore, according to the bet, all of Nyx's data will be merged with mine... Considering that she had long ago chosen to give up her intellect and evolved purely to become a more powerful Ascended Being, this outcome can be considered as achieving her goal."

If she wins, she becomes the master of Janus-Nyx, the Ascended Being; if she loses, she becomes part of the Ascended Being. But since she has no self-awareness anyway, it's not a loss either way, right...?

Jiang Zhou couldn't help but silently complain in his heart.

"So, are you now a combination of Janus and Nyx?"

Jiang Zhou asked.

"So, are you now a combination of human cells and mitochondria?"

Janus countered with this question.

"Tsk..."

Jiang Zhou was speechless for a moment after being rebuffed like that.

As they talked, the black mist became increasingly solidified—the whole process resembled a rewind of the previous server decompositions, starting with dust, then gravel, followed by countless black cubes, and finally…

"A multi-function printer?"

Jiang Zhou said in surprise.

As the black mist gradually condensed and took shape, what finally appeared behind Janus was a multi-purpose printer!

"It really doesn't have an imaginative name. I thought future generations would call it something like 'Gate of Ascension' or 'Gate of Supremacy'."

Janus commented as follows.

"You like it just because it has the word 'door' in it, huh... So what exactly is it?"

Jiang Zhou first complained about the other party's taste in naming, and then immediately asked.

The true nature of the universal printer has always been one of the biggest questions lingering in his mind.

"If it's just what's in front of you, then you can consider it as the medium that carries all of Nyx's information—although that's not entirely accurate, the prerequisite knowledge required for a specific explanation is beyond your current understanding, so just assume that for now."

Janus said this.

The medium that carries all the information of the super artificial intelligence Nyx?

Judging by appearance alone, the universal printer behind Janus was no different from the ones Jiang Zhou had seen before. A hundred years from now, there would conservatively be hundreds, if not thousands, of similar devices...

But if it's a medium, does that mean every multi-purpose printer contains a flying object?
Jiang Zhou thought to himself.

"Hmm... Hecate just gave up her spot, so it seems you should return to the future."

After the universal printer was fully completed, Janus suddenly said.

"What do you mean by Hecate giving up her place?"

Hearing him suddenly say such a thing out of the blue, Jiang Zhou couldn't help but ask.

"It means exactly what it says. She has left your mental matrix and no longer exists as a controllable element. And that empty space is just the right place for you to reconnect with Jim Ritter... In that sense, she has become quite sensible since becoming human."

Janus said this—he spoke of Hecate as if he were talking about one of his disobedient juniors.

However, Jiang Zhou's focus was not on this at the moment.

"Ah? Why?"

Although Jiang Zhou would jokingly complain that Hecate occupied one of his controllable element slots without doing anything, the sense of security that came from having a high-level dark web AI constantly monitoring him was far more valuable than simply having any controllable element.

Putting aside everything else, he almost got exposed in front of the cartographer when he was transporting goods in Theseus; if Hecate hadn't arrived in time to save the day, he might have been done for. "Even if Nyx ultimately loses, those zombies won't admit defeat—no, they don't even have the concept of admitting defeat. Therefore, the final cleanup work still has to be handled by you."

Janus smiled at this point and then said:

"Of course, there are also simple and brutal solutions. But you don't want the Nord resettlement area to end up being razed to the ground, and for hundreds of millions of humans to die because of Jupiter's purge, do you?"

"Tell me, what should I do?"

Jiang Zhou immediately switched to a serious expression.

"It's very simple. After you go back and complete the adjustments and modifications to Depth 3, you'll naturally know what to do next."

Janus said this.

"It's that simple?"

Jiang Zhou looked completely bewildered.

"Or do you want to add a bit more challenge?"

Janus said.

"No, no."

Jiang Zhou waved his hands repeatedly, then hesitated for a moment before speaking:

"Will Ms. Hecate reconnect after that? I mean, if she wants to continue researching the big topic of human emotions, she should still need the Janus program connection, right?"

Although she hadn't connected with Jim when he gave the answer "love," Jim, being a Depth 7 on the Orpheus path, should have been able to synchronize his emotions with Hecate through a strong empathy circuit...

Jiang Zhou's question caused Janus to express a sense of "helplessness" for the first time tonight.

"I think her research on this topic should end here, or at least she won't be connected with you again because of it."

Janus said this.

It's not finished, it's over.

"why?"

Jiang Zhou couldn't help but ask curiously.

"Because she probably really dislikes that last sub-topic."

Janus replied in the same tone as before.

Hatred, anger, love...

What are the next research topics?

Jiang Zhou couldn't help but ask.

"The emotion between the Creator and the Creator."

Janus answered in this way.

Jiang Zhou was speechless for a moment.

"All right……"

It took him a long time to finally manage to utter this one word.

"Anyway, you can go back now."

Janus did not continue the topic. The multi-function printer behind him automatically extended a jet-black thread, which connected to the back of Jiang Zhou's occipital bone.

"Oh, right."

Just as Jiang Zhou began to feel dizzy, Janus suddenly spoke:

"Judging by the time, Eros's last wish should be completed soon. They leave behind something similar to their last wish before they ascend. Since you have Sybil's help, you might as well try your luck, at least make sure it doesn't fall into the hands of some antisocial lunatic."

At this moment, Jiang Zhou, whose consciousness was almost completely blurred, wanted to ask "What the hell?", but before he could open his mouth, he completely fainted.

"What the hell?!"

Immediately afterwards, he sat up again.

But after saying that, he frowned and muttered, "What the hell?"

Unable to come up with any clues for a moment, he looked around and found that the surrounding layout had completely changed—the entire server room was now empty, with only Janus and the strange black cube behind him remaining.

"Why did I get dizzy as soon as I walked in? Is it some kind of sensitive content related to your process of integrating Nyx's data?"

He looked at Janus and couldn't help but complain.

Janus responded with a smile:
"You'll find out later." (End of Chapter)